Liw

Liw stands beside the Liwiec in eastern Mazovia. It probably began as a stronghold guarding a ford and the duchy's eastern border; the first known written mention dates to 1304. The castle was built by the Mazovian dukes before 1429. Liw had town rights by 1421, and from 1493 to 1789 Old Liw and New Liw existed as separate towns.

Liw became the judicial centre of the Land of Liw, holding a weekly market and three annual fairs. It passed to the Polish Crown in 1537. Wars in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries damaged the town, and after the partitions its administrative and judicial functions moved elsewhere. At Liw in April 1831, Polish insurgents fought Russian forces across the Liwiec.